Omega Zero
by kepic
Summary: CYOA v3. Omega uses Psionics from WH40k, Wizard spells from Pathfinder, Force from Star Wars franchise, and Biotics from Mass Effect. And tech from all of them (well, except Worm, because Tinkertech is broken).
1. Chapter 1

To make it clear: All rights to characters, setting, story and central concepts in this story remain the property of Wildbow, Worm's author. This is just me playing in the sandbox. Worm can be found at parahumans dot wordpress dot com.

* * *

 **Prologue**

Magnus was uncomfortable. Hell, more than uncomfortable. He regretted, momentarily, his decision to volunteer for the procedure. Not that there were many alternative test subjects in the Alliance Navy. His ability with Magic, Biotics, Psionics and Force was very nearly unique.

The procedure itself was a success. He now had a functioning set of experimental Mechanicus Implants. Waking up, now that hadn't been a success. A wave of exquisite confusion, vertigo and disorientation startled Magnus enough that he had momentarily lost control of his abilities. Combined with a surge in his new implants as they activated, he was shunted through the Warp and rendered unconscious.

This time waking up had been far more controlled. Magnus examined his strange surroundings, failing to recognize anything. Sure, he was on Earth, that much was familiar. Everything else, though… It was strange. He seemed to be in the past. The level of technology and surroundings suggested late twentieth or early twenty-first centuries.

He was looking out of the window. The city beyond was unknown to him. He read the newspaper on the table next to his bed and was baffled. To his knowledge there hadn't been a city called Brockton Bay on Earth. Ever. His new Mechanicus Archive agreed. There were other things that indicated that he had probably ended up in an alternate dimension. There were superhumans, or parahumans as they were called here, on this Earth.

"Ah, you're awake," said the woman stepping into his room. She was dressed in combat fatigues of the era and had covered the lower half of her face with a shemagh in the colors of the United States flag. Magnus recognized her as Miss Militia, one of the parahumans associated with the Protectorate. She was mentioned in an article in the newspaper.

"Miss Militia," he said, turning to face her fully and nodding.

"What happened to you? You were found unconscious and practically naked near Boardwalk."

Caution was the key here. He was uncertain of how the people of this Earth felt and dealt with dimensional crossovers. Lying, preferably by omission, was the best course.

"One part of my implants spiked suddenly and before the others could compensate I was rendered unconscious. Experimental technology, you understand. It should be fixed now."

"I could ask Armsmaster to check out your implants, make sure there aren't other problems with it," she said.

Magnus almost smiled. "I don't think so. Good try, though. Am I free to leave or do the good doctors want to check something? Or perhaps you need to ask something?"

"Have you thought of joining the Protectorate? What should we call you?"

"I have and I won't be joining. I'd like my technology to stay my technology."

"I assume you are aware of how short the careers of independent Tinkers tend to be?"

There were some foreign terms there. Magnus hesitated.

"I think I can defend myself well enough. I have some tricks up my sleeve."

"I understand. And your name?"

Magnus had considered this for a while. He was the first of the Omegas, his Mechanicus Implants prototypes developed by the technologists of Mars. "I am Omega. Well, Omega Zero, if Omega is too final for you."

She was quiet for a moment, staring at him. "Well, the doctors say that there appears to be nothing for them to do as they have no idea what your implants do. So you're free to go."

"Good," Magnus said. He gestured and spoke a word of power. An armor based on N7's but upgraded for the Omegas appeared on him. Another word and gesture made him disappear.

"Tricks indeed," Miss Militia said and grinned under her shemagh.

* * *

So maybe teleporting randomly wasn't a good idea, Magnus thought as he dodged another swipe from the lizard cape. He was huge, almost a foot taller than Magnus, built like a tank, and slowly turning into some kind of ugly dragon. He was also on fire.

Behind them on the roof a girl dressed in black with a bug mask and burns was cowering. She was probably behind the bugs attacking the lizard man, even if the bugs didn't do much except sizzle as they hit the flames.

Magnus flung the lizard man off the roof with a Force Throw giving himself some breathing room. "You O.K. ?" he asked the girl.

"Fine, I think. Little burned," she allowed.

It was only a moment before the flaming parahuman jumped back to the roof. "Fuck," Magnus said. "Time to up my game."

Magnus raised a biotic Barrier and threw a Warp towards the flaming man. Apparently the fucker had regenerative abilities like the krogan, so he hoped that Warp would work against him as well as it worked against them.

The lizard seemed to think it could simply tank the Warp only to find out that he was wrong. One of the more powerful biotic attacks in Magnus' arsenal, Warp turned the left side of his opponent's abdomen to hamburger meat, totally disintegrated the left side of his pelvis and ripped off his left leg. It also pushed him off the roof again. This time Magnus went after him to the edge of the roof. Down below he saw the flames diminishing and the lizard man was reverting to his human shape. The wounds caused by the Warp were closed but the regeneration was slow and the man was unconscious. As a human he wasn't much bigger, if at all, than Magnus himself.

Magnus muttered a few arcane words and gestured towards the fallen human, making sure that he stayed down. Then he returned to the girl. After a quick application of Force healing she was almost as good as new.

"Thank you," the girl said and opened her mouth to say something else just as they heard heavy thumps from behind them. Three huge shapes had landed there and people were sliding off them.

"What the hell man?! You took out Lung?" one of the guys exclaimed. He was dressed foppishly, in a Renaissance fair costume. He even had a scepter and a coronet.

"Lung? How imaginative," Magnus muttered. "Well, yes. He attacked me. Should I have let him kill me?"

The fop stared at Magnus. "Well, no. I'm just saying that it's Lung. Lung!"

Magnus was utterly nonplussed. Perhaps Lung was some kind of local legend.

"Thank you for taking care of Lung," said the guy dressed in motorcycle leathers and helmet with a crude skull painted on the visor. He was slightly smaller than Magnus, and there were rivulets of dark vapor misting down from his helmet.

"Hey, back to the important things," the lanky teen interrupted. "What the hell did you do to Lung? He's still missing his leg."

A girl dressed in a lavender and black bodysuit with a utility belt diagonally across her hips walked over to the edge of the room. She watched at the shape on the ground for a moment and grimaced. "Wasp and bee stings, fire ants and spider bites, and something else that I can't really figure out. His regeneration is suppressed."

Magnus glanced at her. Information gathering specialist?

"Biotics and magic. Mostly biotics, magic's just keeping him unconscious."

They watched Magnus as if he was utterly crazy. "Oh, you're one of the loony ones," the fop said.

"Regent, don't annoy the guy who took out Lung, please?" The girl pleaded.

"Right. Sorry," Regent apologized. It sounded extremely insincere.

"So what was it said that sounded crazy?" Magnus asked.

The guy in the leathers turned to look at Magnus. "I have no idea what biotics are but generally speaking magic doesn't exist. Even if Myrddin and the Adepts claim that their powers are magic."

"Ah. Well, I can see why you'd think I've got a few screws loose."

The girl in lavender was watching Magnus and rubbing her temple with a grimace. "What ARE you?" she said.

"I'm called Omega. I'm, well, you could call me a combat engineer. I also dabble in various forms of energy manipulation."

"I'm thinking you do a bit more than dabble," the girl said.

"Well, I suppose it's time for introductions," the man in the leathers said. "I'm Grue, she's Tattletale. The fool over there is Regent and these are Bitch's dogs Brutus, Angelica and Judas," he said, pointing first at the butch girl and then towards the spiky monsters they had ridden on.

"You're villains, then?" Magnus said. "I can't really see a hero calling herself Bitch."

Grue hesitated. "Well, yes. We're Undersiders. The PRT calls Bitch Hellhound."

Bitch growled. "Stupid motherfuckers."

There was a moment of stillness and quiet, then Tattletale turned her head. "We've better go, hero incoming. I'm guessing neither of you wants a ride?"

"No. We're fine," Magnus said.

Grue shrugged. "Fine. Bitch, let's go." He jumped on one of the dogs and pulled Tattletale up with him.

About a minute later Magnus heard an engine roar and moved to the edge of the roof to see what was coming. The vehicle was a thing of beauty, all sleek curves and still managed to give the impression of power. On the motorcycle was a man in power armor, his helmet open so that he could be seen to speak. His beard was meticulously shaped and Magnus wondered if this was the current fashion trend or just the man's affectation.

The man took a halberd from the bike and changed somehow it's shape until he had a grappling hood instead of a blade visible. Then he shot the hook to the roof and let it pull him up, landing on the roof with practiced ease.

"Hello there. You are Omega, yes? Miss Militia sent a file on you to my armor's systems," the man said. "Who's this next to you?"

The girl grimaced. "I haven't decided on a name yet, sorry."

Magnus saw the man nodding and asked: "And who might you be?"

There was a flash of sour surprise on the man's face before he answered. "Armsmaster, leader of Protectorate East-North-East."

The girl was watching Magnus like he was an alien. "Wait, what? You don't know Armsmaster?"

Magnus turned to face the girl. "Nope," exaggerating the popping sound at the end of the word. "Well, yes, now I do, obviously."

"What happened here?" Armsmaster asked.

Magnus gave him the abbreviated version of the fight and its results. Armsmaster asked a thing or two and then went to check on Lung. Magnus watched as he took some kind of cage from his bike and set it over Lung.

"I guess our work here is done," Magnus said to the girl.

* * *

Spells used:  
\- Disguise Self, 1st level Wizard spell  
\- Teleport, 5th level Wizard spell  
\- Deep Slumber, 3rd level Wizard spell

Force Powers used:  
\- Force Throw  
\- Force Healing

Biotics used:  
\- Barrier (not needed but reflexes are reflexes)  
\- Warp

Psionic powers used:  
\- None used consciously


	2. Chapter 2

To make it clear: All rights to characters, setting, story and central concepts in this story remain the property of Wildbow, Worm's author. This is just me playing in the sandbox. Worm can be found at parahumans dot wordpress dot com.

Pathfinder belongs to Paizo. Mass Effect belongs to BioWare. Star Wars belongs Disney. Warhammer 40,000 Heresy belongs to Games Workshop. Did I forget something?

* * *

 **Settling in**

"So, first time out?" Omega asked the girl.

She nodded somewhat hesitantly. "Yeah."

"It's for me too, sort of. But my … powers are total BS so I was pretty sure I could take him."

"Must be nice," she replied, sounding defeated.

"Hey, none of that, now," Magnus rebuked her. "Like I told Armsmaster, you were doing just fine before I barged in. I bet you were already thinking about how to deal with him."

The girl hesitated for a second. "Well… Yeah, I did come up with something but I doubt it would have worked."

"Oh?"

She drew out a spray can. "I think this would have worked as a flame thrower, sort of. His eyes seemed vulnerable still."

Magnus grinned at her. "There you go. Creativity is one hell of a power, even if it isn't a superpower."

Magnus and the girl walked in silence for a while. "Going home?" Magnus eventually asked.

"I suppose I should," the girl said. "Thanks for the healing."

Magnus nodded. "You're welcome. See you later, then."

"Yeah," she said and turned to an alley.

Magnus looked after her for a while and then left himself. In the opposite direction.

* * *

Magnus had no resources at all. This wasn't a problem. As an archmage, he just had to find something no one would miss to start. It was easy enough - there were a lot of options in the city like Brockton Bay.

Since the most obvious places would be monitored for new tinkers he chose to break into an apparently empty warehouse.

It wasn't empty. Of course, he had stumbled into a drug warehouse. It was decently well hidden, too, so it was most likely a Nazi one instead of ABB's or, Emperor forbid, Merchants'. It could have been Coil's or one of the short-lived smaller gang's but it was unlikely. _Either way_ , Magnus mused, _it was a rare stroke of luck_. Good or bad, he didn't know yet.

After finding only street-level thugs with a decently professional overseer it appeared that he was in luck. He now had a warehouse full of resources and money. He also had a half a dozen corpses which he stacked in a storeroom for later disposal and one temporary survivor.

Magnus wasn't averse to killing. His career as a special operative was pretty much defined by it. Sometimes he even killed good people in the name of getting the mission done. This wasn't one of those times. He didn't feel an iota of regret or remorse for killing Nazis.

Magnus realized that he had only a limited time to use ransack the warehouse and the overseer's mind. It was unlikely that the Empire would leave a warehouse like this without contacting it for long. Someone could even come to check it. Now that would be lucky, Magnus thought. An Empire, Magnus scoffed, remembering his earlier musings. If only they knew.

That led to an interesting possibility. The Emperor might walk the Earth at this very moment in this Universe. Then Magnus shook his head. No, he would never have accepted the way things stood currently. There was no Emperor in this Universe.

The mind of the overseer wasn't particularly complex or difficult to access. A combination of Force sensitivity, Warp psychics, and partial melding techniques stolen from the Asari were almost universally effective in accessing information in a target's mind. If you didn't care about the integrity of the mind in question. In this case, it was a non-issue. The overseer was already dead.

Tony Stubb wasn't a particularly nice man but neither was he a demon. He had been a member of the E88 since his teens - almost fifteen years now. Tony had known ever since he saw his best friend's brains on a wall that his time was limited, too. He cared surprisingly little - life was transient, after all. Magnus was actually surprised by the man's philosophical attitude towards the eventual and unavoidable end to life.

Tony knew surprisingly little about the details of the Empire's criminal ongoings. It seemed that E88 had surprisingly good information security, at least through compartmentalization. Tony knew of only the distribution center in addition to this warehouse, and some of his bosses. A sort of stroke of luck was that he knew the identity of Hookwolf. On the other hand, it seemed that everyone knew that Brad Meadows was Hookwolf - he had been sentenced to Birdcage, after all.

In the end of his delve into Tony's mind, Magnus did him a favor and just twisted his mind to kill him. Painless and instantaneous.

Magnus collected the weapons and money into one pile and the drugs in another. He found a large duffel bag which he filled with the money, guns, and ammo. He also stripped some of the thugs to get actual clothes and took a few knives off of them as well.

Then he used one of his many ways to set things ablaze before leaving. He was partial to simple _spark_ but this required speed, so _burning hands_ it was. The deed would probably be blamed on one of the other gangs.

* * *

It didn't take especially long for Magnus to set up his demiplane. After an hour of rest and half an hour to prepare the proper spells he cast _greater create demiplane_ and was off to start. Once inside his demiplane he cast the spell a few times more to speed up time inside. After these, the time inside the demiplane flowed 64 times faster than on Material plane.

A link from a gold chain taken from one of the warehouse guards worked as an additional material component for _create armaments_ which meant he had a small dagger made of gold worth about two 500 unit material component units. He repeated the process eight times.

Then he moved to a way more efficient way of creating tokens. Each casting of _fabricate_ created one token worth 1000 units. Casting the spell over thirty times was somewhat repetitive and boring despite him having to use higher-level spell slots to do so.

Two days later Magnus had a decent start on his demiplane. Time flowed 256 times faster, it was permanent and bountiful, had a normal day-night cycle with nights being 8 hours long, and the season was stuck on late summer for optimal harvesting. He even had a small _resplendent mansion_ in there, although he'd have to cast it again now and then.

Even Magnus himself considered his magical might rather ridiculous. It was, actually, since it was almost impossible to enhance it further.

Still, it was better than trying to figure out new things to do with mass effect fields, psionics or the Force. Magnus was quite sure that he didn't know everything about them but at this point, it wasn't as much growth or experience as flashes of lateral insight and combinations of the four. Especially now that he didn't have access to other masters.

One good example of requiring lateral thinking was his current situation. Magnus had no idea how to replicate the accident that had led him to this universe. He knew that the connection existed since the Emperor's blessing was still active.

* * *

Eventually, Magnus emerged from his demiplane back to the Material plane. He wanted to do some shopping and intelligence gathering. The first was made possible by E88's generous donation of 250,000 dollars. For the latter, Magnus wanted to walk the city and visit a library.

Magnus bought seeds and other things that would make bountiful useful, as well as some raw materials for create armaments to replicate.

Later, in the Brockton Bay Central Library, when Magnus was using their computers to access their archive of newspapers, Force informed him of a familiar presence when her emotions spiked. Looking around he soon found the source of the said spike - a tall girl, perhaps seventeen. She had a wide mouth and luxurious long hair, and she was dressed to avoid notice.

It was the bug girl. Since they had seemed to connect earlier Magnus decided to sort of ignore the Unwritten Rules and tell her he recognized her. Only polite to reciprocate such things with fellow heroes. Besides, that spike had been fear, anxiousness, and tension, underlined by the constant of depression. It took a while longer but she made some kind of a decision and seemed to get ready to leave.

She was surprised again by a middle-aged woman in a red coat asking if she was leaving. Soon the girl relaxed a little and packed up and rose up to leave. Magnus quickly did the same.

* * *

The conversation wasn't nearly as awkward as Magnus had feared. It had been worse. The poor girl had had a full-blown panic attack right there on the steps of the library. It took nearly five minutes for it to pass while they sat on the steps, even with Magnus' subtle use of Force.

"Are you OK now?" Magnus asked the girl.

"No, but it's unlikely to get better soon," she answered.

"Sorry about that. I just saw you panic a little inside and thought you might need support."

"Yeah, sure. What do you want?"

Magnus looked at her, baffled at her reaction. He had gotten an impression of her being almost suicidally depressed earlier, probably from some kind of abuse from what the Force had told him, but this level of defeatism was unexpected. She really expected him to extort her in some way.

"Nothing. I just wanted to help," he said.

Magnus was pretty sure even those not Force-sensitive could feel the disbelief radiating from the girl.

"Oh, really?" You could practically feel the sarcasm and cynicism emanating from her.

"Really," Magnus said and held out his hand to her. "Magnus Underwood. Although you knowing that doesn't really mean much, I suppose."

She just stared his hand like it was a poisonous snake. Then she shook it. "Not going to tell you," she said.

Magnus shrugged. "That's fine."

She eyed Magnus with suspicion. "So, really, what do you want?"

"Just talk, and offer my help. Us fellow heroes have to stick together, right?"

She was startled, although somehow the feeling was spread out all around them. "Don't do that!" She hissed.

Magnus exaggeratedly looked around. "I think we both have good enough situational awareness to get away talking about anything at all."

"What do you mean?"

Magnus almost shook his head on how wound up the girl was. "How many bugs do you currently control? Do you sense through them?"

Now she was clearly uncomfortable. "Just a few hundred thousand, and not really. Bug senses are crap."

"Do you know where they are?"

"Of course," she scoffed.

Magnus smiled. "That there is already a frightfully efficient way to perceive your surroundings."

She nodded, having obviously already thought about that.

"So what about you? Magic?"

Magnus looked at her. "Yeah, magic. Do you want proof?"

"I need to be somewhere at three," she said.

"Doesn't matter, we have time," Magnus shrugged, grinning insanely.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Five minutes later they were standing on the outskirts of the city.

"That is utter and total bullshit," Taylor was still grousing.

She had told Magnus her name after a few demonstrations of magic inside Magnus' demiplane. The demiplane itself was a factor in coming to believe in magic.

A chance to take a nap without practically any time at all passing on the Material plane had been too much to resist. It also made Taylor grouse about BS trump powers for nearly half an hour now. Magnus hadn't even touched on Warp, Mass Effect fields, or Force yet.

"So you still want us to team up?" She confirmed. Taylor had trouble believing that someone actually wanted her.

"Yeah. Your power is far from useless even if it is only for sensing our surroundings and stinging our opponents. I think we can figure out more use out of it, though."

Taylor nodded a little and squared her shoulders. Time to go meet the Undersiders.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Spells used: burning hands, greater create demiplane, create armaments, fabricate, create demiplane (offscreen), permanency (offscreen), plane shift (offscreen).

Emperor's blessing: a permanent (or until the connection to Emperor is severed or His favor ends) +5 sacred bonus to all ability scores.


End file.
